|
|
Article: Survey: Volume of fish prey drops by half in Lake Michigan
- Article from:
- Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque)
- Article date:
- January 14, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2008 Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque). Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
MILWAUKEE (AP) - The volume of prey fish in Lake Michigan has
dropped by half in the last year, according to an annual survey done
by the federal government.
And some scientists say a possible reason is the ballooning
population of mussels that eat plankton upon which the lake's fish
species directly or indirectly depend.
"The lake just can't support the mass of fish that it used to,"
said Tom Nalepa, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. "The
energy that used to go into the lake is now going into mussel
populations rather than other biological components."
The estimated biomass of prey fish in 1989 was about 450,000
tons, ...